Bank of America down in mid-day trading

Equity investors lose confidence as fast as they gain it

Bank of America (BAC), which notably gained investor confidence in the early part of the new year with its shares advancing more than 5% in two days, continues to be the freckled-faced, red-headed stepchild of big banking -- or at least one of many.

And, this Jan Brady of banking is getting kicked again … at least slightly on HousingWire’s exclusive mortgage stock index.

By mid-day Tuesday, BAC’s stock on the HW 30 had fallen by nearly 1% before rising a bit to recover some lost ground.

So what kicked BofA after it experienced notable gains in the first few days of 2014?

Seeking Alpha points to a report from Citigroup (C) analyst Keith Horowitz, which lifted the bank’s profile last week. According to Horowitz, BofA for all its issues still has "many built-in earnings drivers" and only stands to benefit from an improving U.S. economy, Seeking Alpha reported.

But other analysts were not so quick to let Bank of America shake off its low self-esteem. After all, this is a bank that spent years feeling the perpetual sting of new regulations, mortgage litigation settlements and the plethora of legal issues transferred from subprime lender Countrywide, which BofA acquired during the housing meltdown.

Seeking Alpha points out that delinquencies may be down, but so are ‘loan loss provisions’ and loss reserves are not growing anymore. This means BofA is not exactly in a better position, it’s just not bleeding as much as it used to.

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Still, year-to-date, BofA’s stock is up 2.53% on the HW 30 index. It’s also up 6.9% from a month ago. And Louis Navellier with Blue Chip Growth is telling everyone to "hold" when it comes to BofA. Like the Seeking Alpha article, Navellier is not so sold on BofA’s recent stock surge.

Navellier writes:

"Bank of America is scheduled to announce Q4 2013 results before the opening bell next Wednesday, January 15. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to look forward to. Right now, analysts expect sales to drop 1.7% compared with Q3 2012. And while Bank of America is headed towards triple-digit bottom-line growth, that’s mostly because the company has been cutting costs rather than growing revenue."